


rise from ash

by blueseam



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Iroh loves his nephew, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:09:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24004129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueseam/pseuds/blueseam
Summary: When Zuko is five, he shuffles over to his visiting uncle, a small, secret look on his face, and opens his palms to reveal a tender flame. The first he had ever created.Iroh tells him his fire is magnificent, as Zuko will be, and the joy on the childlike face is brighter than the flame he cradles.(Iroh watches Zuko evolve.)
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 1097
Collections: I think of you as my own, best of avatar, iroh & zuko fics, zuko best boi





	rise from ash

When Iroh loses Lu Ten, his lungs shrink, constrict, and he isn’t sure they’ll ever expand again. Iroh sees Zuko again, weeks after his death, and is reminded of the sweetness of air.

When Zuko is five, he shuffles over to his visiting uncle, a small, secret look on his face, and opens his palms to reveal a tender flame. The first he had ever created.

Iroh tells him his fire is magnificent, as Zuko will be, and the joy on the childlike face is brighter than the flame he cradles.

Later, when Zuko shows his father, his gift of energy, of life, is met with a scoff and a dismissal. “Your sister produced her first flame months ago. At least you’re finally catching up.” Zuko’s face falls and Iroh is a general, but he has never seen hope on a face be snuffed so quickly.

Zuko is six, and he is having trouble with one of his lessons. Flames leap from his hands, but they are _wrong_ and not _perfect_ and there is no joy on his face. Iroh teaches him to breathe through his struggle, to focus on a candle and tie the flame to his breath.

He’s seven, and Zuko informs him that his father, Iroh’s brother, told him Azula was born lucky, that he was lucky to be born at all. Iroh has spent enough years breathing, calmly and purposefully, to not betray how he feels about this. Zuko apologizes for not being better, and Iroh closes his eyes.

Lu Ten dies. So does his father. His brother takes the throne, and no one is brave enough to ask what happened to his wife. No one, except for his nephew. Zuko is eight.

His nephew is eleven, and he seems in equal measure fearful and determined. Iroh has elected to stay at court as time allows. His dear relatives are somewhat prone to disappearance these days, after all.

He stays, and he observes Zuko, this time with nothing to sway his attention.

His brother treats his nephew harshly, and if Iroh had ignored it before, it pains him more so now to see a son treated with such disregard.

A son is a precious, temporal thing, he has learned.

Mid-morning, Iroh watches his nephew train. Zuko has nurtured a cautious focus and discipline. He demonstrates more prowess than Iroh had at his age. What he lacks in innate skill, he makes up with an endearing, stubborn persistence. His brother has little appreciation for this careful, slow mastery.

Azula, a natural talent combined with sheer malevolent temperament, suits his impatient tastes far more thoroughly.

Zuko has finished his katas, and bows to his instructor with far more respect than they ever afford him. While Azula is awarded with praise, more often than not Zuko is berated for his troubles. He can never please them, and Iroh thinks, maybe if his brother understands just how hard his nephew _tries,_ he could at least appreciate the relentless effort.

Iroh mentions this to him, once, and the response he receives ensures he won’t attempt such a thing a second time. Austere eyes pierce him. Even lit with fire’s spark, they’re devoid of warmth.

The only thing Zuko works at, he says, is bringing shame to Sozin’s legacy. The words strike him, and Iroh hopes fervently that his brother will not relate this sentiment to his nephew, only to realize it is the only thing he ever has.

Iroh leaves, and vows to himself that if his nephew has nothing else, he will have his Uncle by his side.

Zuko turns thirteen, and nothing is the same.

“Don’t you think I need to start learning as much as I can?” His nephew’s eyes are hopeful. He wants to learn, to please, and however much Iroh _should,_ he still can’t find it within himself to say no. He opens the door to the war room and watches Zuko take his place inside.

When he stands up for himself, for his people, Iroh feels a flush of pride and sees the conviction of his beloved Lu Ten. For a moment, he revels in the pride before it fades to a cold dread.

_“I’m your loyal son! I meant you no disrespect.”_

_“Rise and fight, Prince Zuko!”_

_“I won’t fight you.”_

_“You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher.”_

Iroh has enough time to see his brother’s fingers grip the back of his nephew’s head, before he closes his eyes, turns away and hears only screaming.

He has let his nephew down, and feels deep, encompassing _shame_.

After, he picks Zuko off the floor of the cursed arena. Singed hair curls away from a ravaged face, and all his nephew can do is make choked, pained, _inhuman_ sounds before he passes out from the shock of injury, the mark of Ozai’s weakness and cruelty.

He is banished, and Iroh goes with him, will never leave as long as he is needed. It takes weeks for the bandages to come off, and when they do, Zuko cries and cries, and Iroh has no reassurance to offer, so he holds him instead.

“Why did he do it?” Iroh looked at pained golden eyes, so different from Ozai’s, and knows what he’s being asked but cannot answer. It is the last sincere question his nephew asks for a long time.

“The only sight I want to see is the Avatar in chains.” Zuko’s voice is as hard and unyielding as the temple stone. Iroh’s afraid for the softness he cherishes, a delicate thing he fears was burned away along with the flesh.

Zuko snaps at him, berates his crew, and underneath it all he can see is a raw pain that is impossible for him to ease, as much as he tries. Iroh watches Zuko burn himself away on his mission for a love, an approval that doesn’t, will never exist, because Iroh knows Ozai as much as he wishes he didn’t.

He watches his nephew pace along the deck. “He has to be out there,” Zuko murmurs, as though if he says it quietly enough, he can keep the hope from dissippating.

Iroh watches him cherish this pitiful lifeline and hates Ozai just a little bit more.

Zuko turns fourteen. It’s his first birthday in exile, and he celebrates by drinking so much that he can’t stand upright, until he nearly stumbles over the railing and into the ocean.

Iroh sits with him on the floor and alternates between holding him upright as he vomits and cradling him in a loose embrace as he cries angry tears.

When the Avatar reappears, he watches Zuko’s stubborn obsession increase tenfold, and feels a renewed sense of defeat at the idea that his nephew might never be free.

There’s fire, and pursuit, and they both know who the blue-masked, sword wielding spirit is but they dance around the matter and let it dissolve.

He acts rashly, impatiently, desperately, and Iroh would wonder what had happened to the careful discipline he’d witnessed if he didn’t already know. All he can do is prod gently, oh so carefully, at the fast-fraying threads of Zuko’s comprehension of the world, at his understanding of his place in it.

It gets easier, after the North Pole. They have no ship, no men, and no lurid banners of red and gold.

Iroh watches the shorn topknot and phoenix tail drift from where they stand on the river’s banks, down the stream and out of sight. If only identity were such an easy thing to erase.

Zuko runs as quickly as he can towards what he can cling to. His father’s promise. _The Avatar_. He doesn’t stop to examine, to think, because his nephew is a lot of things but he’s never been dull-witted and Iroh knows if he let himself, he would have to acknowledge that Ozai never wanted him to return.

Iroh doesn’t think Ozai ever wanted him at all. Zuko is his mother’s son, and Ozai has never been one to tolerate anything that he cannot possess.

With a reduction in the relentless pressure, he is softer. More questioning. Like an unfurling flower, his wonderful nephew opens himself to their experiences in the Earth Kingdom, and begins a painstaking evolution.

_Who are you? And what do YOU want?_

Mask and dao plummet in harmony, sink like gossamer threads of hair drift in a shallow stream.

They’re at Ba Sing Se, and Zuko abandons him to soft green light for everything he’s ever been convinced to want. His eyes widen, overflow with longing at Azula’s promises, and this is something he’s fought for with single-minded purpose since he’d been decried, falsely, as honorless and cast aside.

It was a lie, then and now, but Zuko would not choose him as long as the deceit reflected itself to him as truth.

Iroh sits in prison, and his heart weighs heavier in his chest than the stones that crushed the forces of his failed siege. His nephew visits him, soul ripped cleanly. It’s been too long since he has been home. Ozai, Azula, will dig their way into such a vulnerable and open wound and rend it apart.

Zuko yells, beseeches, but Iroh keeps his back turned. He gifts his nephew with the knowledge of his true ancestry, and it is all he has left to offer. The prince has been impelled, pressured, and coerced to be one thing or another for most of his life, and Iroh can offer support, guidance, but he won’t decide his nephew’s path for him.

He escapes his prison on the day of Black Sun, and as he goes, he longs for the familiar brush of a headstrong prince by his side.

He sees Zuko again, and even Sozin’s comet can’t obliterate the pure swell of happiness and _pride_ that consume him.

He realizes with a jolt that his nephew is apologizing, and his voice is small, tearful and soaked in leaden guilt. He holds him close, pours as much love into his voice as he is capable and assures him that he was never angry.

On the day of Zuko’s coronation, the sun shines bright and strong. The nations split by war have gathered as one entity, bearing witness over history’s progression.

The Avatar and the Fire Lord stand together, and take the first step on the long road towards redemption and healing. There’s no such thing as an easy resolution, but for now, it is alright. He chuckles. Zuko wouldn’t recognize “ease “ if he encountered it, regardless.

The newly-crowned Fire Lord approaches him. He is met with the countenance of a regal, assured leader, until the visage melts into the nervous, awkward form with which he is so familiar.

“Was that– uh, did I do… okay? Oh, maybe, was I supposed–“ he falters as Iroh pulls him bodily into a hug, releases a puff of breath and encircles him with his own arms.

Iroh remembers small hands cradling a delicate flame, joy illuminating a tiny, hopeful face. “You were magnificent,” he says.

_Just as I always knew you would be._


End file.
